In the book What the Best College Student's Do, Ken Bain says that many problems do not have a simple solution because of ethical and logical concerns. He refers to these problems as "ill-structured" or messy problems. My dream career is that of working on nuclear energy. I see the greatest problem humanity faces is not having enough resources, but I think with enough energy we can generate all the resources we will need. That in itself is not an ill-structured problem, it's quite obvious humanity needs more power.

The problem comes from the fact that energy production is quite dangerous. From oil spills, coal mine collapses, nuclear meltdowns, and fracking induced earthquakes it is clear to see that we are endangering human lives as well the health of the planet itself. This is the innate problem of our energy need, as demand increases so does the danger of producing energy. Does this mean we must go without power or live on the edge of destruction? No, we do not have to live in the extremes but care must be taken and efforts put on all fronts. In many first world countries they are pushing for "green energy" like hydro, wind, and solar. They also require manufacturers of all devices to be energy efficient. And finally many countries also heavily regulate the energy industry to ensure proper safety is implemented and respected. Ill-structured problems may not have an answer at all but we can work on them still. Sometimes the best answer does not mean that all the criteria have been met but we will work towards fulfilling them the best that we can.

Works Cited

Bain, Ken. What the Best College Students Do. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press,

I read an excerpt in The Meditations from Marcus Aurelius and his thoughts on work. In the passage he contemplates man's purpose in life. He reflects on the unwillingness of getting up in the morning to do man's work, but perhaps staying in cozy in bed is really man's purpose. It makes sense shouldn't man's work be that of which he feels like doing? He analyses the world around him and notices the work of plants, birds, ants and all walks of life doing their part to make the universe whole. It would be selfish to stay in bed all day and not do mans work. He would be cheating nature by not doing his part but still taking of the fruit that it bares. Marcus raises a lot of good points that are still relevant today. We may not know our purpose but we do know our place. Feeding 7 billion people is no easy task and one that we still fall short of that daily. If we don't work we cannot survive, we cannot put a man on the moon, and we cannot cure cancer. We are all in this together and we need each other. Every man and woman needs to work because there is work to be done.

In The Devil Wears Prada, the main character Andy, the overachieving want to be journalist strives to learn the necessary elements needed to make her boss happy and succeed at her job. This is a perfect example of Ken Bain’s concept of strategic learning vs deep learning. The general idea behind strategic vs deep learning is that with strategic learning a person only seeks out the minimum to get through a task, class, or job without understanding why they do things the way they are done. With deep learning a person usually has a genuine interest in the topic and tries to tear it apart and put it back together so they understand it thoroughly. Back to The Devil Wears Prada, Andy is able to memorize the list of demands she is still unable to please her boss, Miranda Priestly. It isn’t until Andy has her breaking point and switches from a strategic learner to a deep learner that she is able to please Miranda. She is advised by her confidant Nigel that she is not giving 100%, she needs to dive deeper into the world of fashion in order to understand Miranda. Once Andy truly starts living the life of a fashion mogul’s assistant and experiencing the feeling of the clothes and the lifestyle she is finally able to succeed at her job and earns the respect of Miranda.

Works Cited

Bain, Ken. What the Best College Students Do. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press,

05/27/2015

In the movie Office Space, Peter Gibbons transforms his world view about work from doing it begrudgingly to being happy to work. During an early scene of the movie Peter meets with a therapist because he is depressed. His world view is so bad he says "every day is worse than the last, so that means every day that you see me is the worst day of my life." That is a pretty bleak view of the world by any standard. As the movie progresses, Peter changes his view from being miserable about working to being happy first and letting work just happen. Through this Peter suddenly has many opportunities open up for him. He gets a promotion, a raise, and the attention of a girl he's interested in. Instead of working for happiness, Peter is happy to work and his whole world changes. Now what's funny about this is I've watched Office Space probably 50 times and never knew that Peter’s transformation is a real thing. I always viewed it as a comical depiction of a single character and never really thought about the real world application of this concept. I recently watched a TED talk by Shawn Achor where he says that we all should be thinking like Peter Gibbons. By "reversing the formula for happiness" we are able to be happier, more productive, and more creative. Working is a necessity for all of us but it is not necessary for it to be and unhappy endeavor. We should work to be happy with what we do because it benefits us mentally and benefits those around us as well.

05/22/2015

The philosophical reflection I chose is “Assigned Positions” by John Calvin. I felt really connected by the way he sees how we get our jobs. I felt John Calvin has a big belief that god gives us our jobs knowing what is good for each one of us. To illustrate, it is in my religion the belief that we do not chose our jobs, but god assigns them to us. “Every individuals line of life, therefore, is, as it were, a station assigned by the lord”. This quote applies to my life because I believe that god has a plan, and my job is part of the way he teaches me lessons of life. For example, I worked tree years at Subway to sustain my children and also to become a better person. Working there made me a stronger woman, more independent, and to value life a lot more. e to learn how to succeed in life. I think I can also apply this quote in my culture because most of us work to become independent and this is what god wants for us, so he puts us in rough jobs that sometimes we are not very happy at but they are in our path to make us a better future.

Having an interest in being a registered nurse makes me want to help out people. I want to try and solve the ill-structure problem of so many children in foster homes because they are abused by their parents. I would like to make people understand that their are ways to prevent them from having unwanted pregnancies that would only come to this world to suffer. This is very important to me because I love children and have my own, but also see them so little and fragile. I know that if we all came together we could stop abusive parents from hurting any more children.Statistics show that more than10.5 million children will spend some time in foster care. This may not be the worst problem of these children ending up in foster homes but that most of them come from abusive homes. An statistic done in 2014 proved that more than22,500 children will die of abuse or neglect, most before their fifth birthday. To me this is a ill-structured problem, and I believe that I would like to end this. I think this problem is important because as time is going by the number is increasing and I think we can stop this if we could make people understand that these children are our future and don't need any more abused children.

Are you sure that the dream your chasing is what you really want for yourself? The concept from Alain de Botton that I think would interest Bain is becoming authors of our own ambition. Botton's idea of becoming authors of our own ambition means we should not let our parents, or anyone define our success, and for us to find out to late that the dream we had been chasing was never what we really wanted. I think Bain would say this would make us unhappy, and not help us for our success. When we have a desire for something we would do anything to reach that goal, but when it is not what we really want, we will only fail because it is not what we want out of life. Bain says "success thus simply comes from taking control over your own education, from realizing that you are in charge"(50). As an example, I went to Palomar College Police Academy because my parents wanted me to be a cop, and since I was young they always told me, I would grow up to be a magnificent cop. Luckily for me It was not to late to change my career and chase the dream that I really desired. I think Botton has a point, that the disapointment we would have if one day you wake up knowing you let go of your dream. I think about how I will be working for the rest of my life, and my job should fulfill my needs for success completely.